Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Summer Project

A digital update, since the machine in question is too cruddy to handle a typecast right now...

My wife spotted it at Salvation Army, and I did a follow-up visit: a Royal HH (standard) with my preferred pica typeface, but in a neglected state of affairs. Everything works, but is under a light layer of grime, gunk, dust, dirt, and in some places, rust. Good bones are underneath, though, just waiting to be revealed again.

Imagine this, but on a whole-machine scale.

The margins lack magic right now, as their rail is too gummy for them to slide freely, but after a quick consult with Alan, Richard, and Ryan -- all known HH owners -- I confirmed that the margins are settable by hand, albeit with some yoga-like manipulations to apply both the margin release button and reach under the carriage.

Not entirely magical yet.

I need another standard machine like I need a hole in the head, but my wife was pretty encouraging of this machine, sending me tempting snapshots from her phone and saying things like "I'm not crazy about you collecting, but now I know a good machine when I see one." And this despite the price and our current household budget-tightening. The manager knows me, though, at least by sight, and he offered to knock 50% off the price. Sold!

After an uneventful lug home, the HH is on the sideboard, waiting for the weather to warm up and dry out for real so it can become my summer cleaning project.

Will it look like Alan's when I'm done? That would be nice, certainly. Check back later and we'll see how the project is going.

@all: The wife appreciates your kind words, though she might be having second thoughts about this massive thing sitting on the sideboard. Royal made this machine "deep" and it looks bigger to me at home than it did in the store. Too late now! Bwah ha ha.

@Richard: Can't wait to start in on the type bars. That's such an easy thing to do, too. I feel like I should take core samples.

@notagain & @Duffy: painting is a possibility, as who could be a fan of that poo-brown paint? Part of me wishes for one of the colorful models, but I'd probably have to wrestle Ryan for it.

But now I just remembered - painting it was something of a pain in the butt, since the sides of the machine are part of the skeleton, and can't be removed. You'll just have to do a lot of taping, I suppose!